The technology relates to an image forming apparatus provided with a fixing unit that fixes a toner to a medium.
An image forming apparatus using an electrophotographic scheme is in widespread use. One reason for this is that the image forming apparatus using the electrophotographic scheme is able to achieve a high-quality image in a short time, compared with an image forming apparatus using other scheme such as an inkjet scheme.
The image forming apparatus using the electrophotographic scheme includes a fixing unit that fixes a toner to a medium. The fixing unit includes a heating member and a pressure applying member. The heating member heats the medium onto which the toner has been transferred. The pressure applying member applies a pressure onto the medium onto which the toner has been transferred. In a process of forming an image, the toner attached to a latent image is transferred onto the medium, and thereafter, the medium is applied with the pressure while being heated by the fixing unit. As a result, the toner is fixed to the medium, resulting in formation of the image.
Various proposals have been made already for a configuration of the image forming apparatus provided with the fixing unit. For example, a fixing temperature is varied when images are successively formed, in order to suppress failure in fixing the toner, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-287566. In this case, the fixing temperature is varied from a first fixing temperature to a second fixing temperature in a stepwise manner, and the fixing temperature is kept thereafter.